History of Sorts

Below is a translation of a diary excerpt by an unknown author, dated May 26. 1943.While the author does not specifically mention the deportation of Jews, he describes the forced conscription of young men for labor in Germany.

Commercial Representative, 47 years old – Amsterdam
May 26, 1943

The conscription of the 1921–22–23 birth years has been announced to fill the vacant positions in Germany. You have no choice but to report, and you’re sent off to all sorts of remote places—I hear Riga and Ukraine mentioned. It is what it is, but the young men are the ones who have to endure it. Some of them are bound to become terribly homesick.

Young couples are getting married one after another. But it’s no longer done neatly in a luxury car or carriage—those have long disappeared. There’s no more gasoline, or the cars have been requisitioned. No, the young couples take the tram and walk the rest of the way to city hall, with the guests following behind. You can recognize them by the rose or other flower they wear in their buttonhole. To give it a festive touch, they’re given a little extra ration—a couple of loaves of bread, some meat, and 200 grams of wedding sugar. But the jenever (Dutch gin) is no longer part of it. A bottle of Bols (Dutch gin) on the black market costs 50 guilders. Cognac, 45 guilders.

Whole streams of people can be seen heading to city hall. The marriage is performed, and often the groom leaves the very next day for a year abroad. What misery. These young people are cruelly torn apart by the war. The best time of their lives—gone. The young wife then receives support payments—too little to live on, too much to die from.

So, we see all the young men leaving. As a result, businesses are left without workers. But even that the new Lords know how to solve: female conductors, female postal workers—in short, everywhere, the man is out and the woman, who really belongs at home, is working. An upside-down world. But this is total war. No one asks whether we want it or not. You simply have to comply.

Every day there are new regulations. And it always ends with: if you don’t comply, five years in prison. The prisons are full, there are countless concentration camps. The unfortunate are often taken without due process. No one hears where they’ve gone, why, or where they are. Imagine what that means—if someone dear to you, a father or son or brother, disappears. The uncertainty is killing. More than one person has simply turned on the gas tap…

Trade has been restricted everywhere. I no longer know what’s allowed and what isn’t. Wood, iron, copper, tin, rubber—nothing is allowed anymore.

Everything needs to be rationed and you need an allocation for everything. Result: everything is sold on the black market at dizzying prices.

I saw a bicycle tire sold for 200 guilders, an inner tube for 150. Salad oil (1 liter) for 50 guilders.

I just give these as a few examples. And often, the seller doesn’t even want money, they ask for cigars, for example. There’s huge demand for those.
Today I got Bastiaans’ summer coat. But I didn’t have to pay money—“Just bring me 8 or 10 pounds of candied peel and we’re square.” Of course, I benefit from this too, but I preferred to pay with sugar.

As I said earlier, the young men born in ’21, ’22, and ’23 are being called up—even the so-called plutocrats’ sons.

I am totally against anyone being forced to leave, but I know a few sons of wealthy parents whom I consider absolutely unfit to go abroad. Why? I’ll tell you.

These boys were, to put it bluntly, raised on sugar-topped rusks. A working-class boy of the same age will get through it more easily, but these boys won’t. And that’s why I have even more pity for them.

People try in every possible way to get exemptions, but you’re just banging your head against a wall. Sadly.

As a result, people with money—who used to be able to get whatever they wanted—are now beginning to feel what it truly means to be at war.

Sources

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/thema/Razzia%20Amsterdam%2026%20mei%201943

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=26%20MEI%201943%20AMSTERDAM&rows=1&page=1

https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/sjen001dagb01_01/sjen001dagb01_01_0116.php

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